State officials have agreed to review the planned capacity for a $100 million jail for juveniles in Baltimore — a concession to groups who say the project is too big.
The detention center is designed to accommodate as many as 230 teens facing adult charges, more than double the number now behind bars. Such suspects are currently held in a wing at the Baltimore City Detention Center, an arrangement the Justice Department says lacks adequate separation from hardened adults.
Advocacy groups that include Baltimore's Safe and Sound Campaign, the Annie E. Casey Foundation and the Public Justice Center say the state should spend on intervention programs instead of huge jails. At a loud protest last month, they asked the governor to put the brakes on the project.
Construction of the juvenile detention center is scheduled to begin in the fall. The state has spent $12 million for planning, demolition and site preparation near other prison facilities in East Baltimore; a separate $100 million jail for women is in the planning stages.
This week, the National Council on Crime and Delinquency questioned the number of juveniles that the state expects will face adult charges in the coming years, the projections on which officials based the maximum capacity of the detention center. The Oakland, Calif.-based organization says the projections are flawed because they are three years old and were compiled by the prison system.
A spokesman for Gov. Martin O'Malley said prison and juvenile officials have been meeting with jail opponents and are open to ideas. Safe and Sound director Hathaway Ferebee said another meeting is scheduled for next week.
But state officials said it is unlikely that the project would be derailed even if the projection is revised downward. They said the capacity could be reduced, with some of the space now planned for beds redirected to other purposes.
"It is possible that the plans for additional community-based services or space alternatives within the facility would be reconsidered," said Shaun Adamec, O'Malley's spokesman.
Ferebee said she would be "shocked if they are reviewing population projections without the intention of modifying the footprint." She said she is optimistic that the O'Malley administration will build a less costly facility and put some of the money saved into youth programs such as recreation centers.
Alex Busansky, president of the National Council of Crime and Delinquency, said parts of the facility could be used differently if the state determines that less bed space is needed.
"I think it's great they're recasting the forecasting numbers," he said. "I hope that they would not stop there and that they would take a look at opportunities to build differently or repurpose the building they have planned."
He suggested that part of the facility could be used as a community center.
Meanwhile, Republican former Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., who is trying to win back the job from the O'Malley, criticized the Baltimore jail project as a "warehouse."
It was "certainly not our model," Ehrlich said. "It's the antithesis of what we like to do. Large institutions typically do not work."
Arlene F. Lee, director of the Governor's Office for Children in the Ehrlich administration, who
appeared with Ehrlich this week at an event to discuss services for troubled children, said the state is "building a facility twice as large as it needs."
In fact, the project got its start under Ehrlich. In 2005, Ehrlich approved planning money for the facility and conducted the first population projection survey. The survey arrived at an estimate similar to that two years later under O'Malley.
Stephen T. Moyer, deputy secretary for the Maryland Department of Juvenile Services under Ehrlich and his predecessor, Democratic Gov. Parris N. Glendening, said the need for a juvenile detention center in Baltimore dates to an October 2000 Justice Department report.
"Governor Ehrlich began planning this because that's what the Justice Department told us to do," Moyer said.